In Focus.

"Six Degrees of Separation" (Fred Schepisi, 1993) at noon...

February 20, 2000|By Michael Wilmington, Tribune Movie Critic.

"Six Degrees of Separation" (Fred Schepisi, 1993) at noon on Bravo. The title of this limber, brilliant movie version of John Guare's much-prized New York play refers to the interconnectedness of the human family. Each of us, supposedly, is only six people away from everyone else on Earth. Guare's play raced across the stage, Roman candles blazing in its wake and the movie does, too. The dialogue is many-faceted, subtle and swift New York cocktail chatter cubed. The movie is populated with the high bourgeoisie of Manhattan: Ouisa and art dealer Flan Kittredge (played wonderfully by Stockard Channing and Donald Sutherland). Their friends include South African financiers, foundation heads, even Kitty Carlisle. And it fits, somehow, that the other central character, Paul (Will Smith), is a con man black street kid who wangles his way into the Kittredges' apartment for the night by pretending to be the son of Sidney Poitier, in distress after being mugged and stabbed in Central Park. Like Paul, "Six Degrees of Separation" talks its way into our hearts, then opens up to chaos.